Site Search Navigation

Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Win or Lose, It Was Party Time

By Julie Bosman February 6, 2008 1:27 pmFebruary 6, 2008 1:27 pm

Clinton supporters, left, celebrated under a flurry of confetti at Manhattan Center Studios on Tuesday night. The bar Tonic was one of several in Kips Bay packed with supporters of Senator Barack Obama. (Photos: Todd Heisler/The New York Times; Annie Tritt for The New York Times)

It wasn’t a full-fledged victory party, but Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s supporters cheered each and every victory on Tuesday night from the packed ballroom of the Manhattan Center Studios on West 34th Street. Sitting on bleachers or mingling on the carpeted ballroom floor, with Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty blaring from the speakers, hundreds of people watched returns from a large television screen tuned to CNN. Some clutched beer or wine, though many people may have been scared away from the prices at the cash bar ($8 for a Corona, for instance).
Terry McAuliffe, the campaign chairman, hustled through the room wearing a tight smile and trailed by nervous-looking aides. Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman, Jay Carson, chatted with reporters and tried to play down expectations, suggesting that Senator Barack Obama was poised to win New Jersey.

But by later in the evening, as victories began rolling in, the tension rolled away a bit and the crowd began to loosen up. As Mrs. Clinton won primaries in New York, Massachusetts and then New Jersey, the room erupted in cheers and supporters danced around holding blue “Hillary” signs aloft.

Representative Anthony D. Weiner, a Democrat who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, and a likely candidate for mayor in 2009, wandered into the press room behind the ballroom to chat with reporters and watch the returns. (As the network announced that Mrs. Clinton had won New Jersey, Mr. Weiner squeezed his eyes shut, grinned and pumped his fist in the air.)

When Mrs. Clinton finally arrived, just before 11 p.m., she was joined onstage by former President Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, who then watched her speech from the floor. Mrs. Clinton declared: “Tonight, in record numbers, you voted not just to make history but to remake America. People in American Samoa, Arkansas, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Tennessee and the great state of New York!”

As colored confetti sprayed from the balcony, Chelsea Clinton bounded onstage and engulfed Mrs. Clinton in a hug. Mr. Clinton, with his back turned, was in the crowd, shaking hands with supporters.

Over on the East Side, a similar scene played out among Senator Obama’s supporters, minus the candidate, who was in his home base of Chicago. Even so, two floors of a large bar built to hold 450 people could not begin to accommodate the overflow crowds of New York supporters who descended on Tonic East in Kips Bay on Tuesday night for the campaign’s primary watch party in New York. So the fired-up throngs of Obama revelers did what any self-respecting group of shutouts would do: they promptly took over three more bars, as well.

From 26th Street to 29th Street, along Third Avenue, Obama supporters packed in local establishments like Tonic, Maker’s bar, Artica Bar and Grill and the Mad Hatter Saloon, as they swilled beers, talked politics and erupted in cheers each time a television screen announced that Senator Obama had captured another state.

The crowds stayed mainly upbeat and full of that hope their candidate talks about, despite the ups and downs of the primary results that rolled rolled in over loudspeakers like Sunday sports scores. In fact, even the projection by NBC shortly after midnight of a Hillary Clinton victory in California could not hold down the optimism streaming through the packed and overly hot Tonic bar.

“Oh, no!” cried Shara Marrero, 25, amid a chorus of moans, as she gazed through the darkness at a giant screen in Tonic beaming in the dire NBC projection. But then, after a short pause, she peered more closely at the percentage of California precincts reporting and bellowed, “Wait, that’s only 15 percent!”

And seconds later, a like-minded Yvette Sharon, 27, stood next to her and chimed in, “Don’t get disappointed, because we could wake up tomorrow and he could be the winner!”

Ms. Marrero, of the East Village, said she had voted for Senator Obama on Tuesday and had wanted to come out and show her support for him at Tonic — even though she wasn’t a campaign volunteer, as were some in the crowd. She said just the buzz and good will in the room excited her. And like many of the other Obama supporters crammed alongside her into the neon red-and-black colored Tonic, she did not seem especially fazed by the split election results — or by Mrs. Clinton’s victories in a number of large, delegate-heavy states.

“It’s disappointing about New York, New Jersey and California,” she said, “but not really surprising. Maybe I’m idealistic, but I think he can still do it!”

Down on Tonic’s first floor, the party organizer Shannon Currie, 24, stood among the hordes of Obama revelers in her bold, orange-colored “Barack the Vote” T-shirt, as she surveyed the frenzied scene in amazement. And moments later, a smile broke across her face as a table of people next to her burst into the famous Obama chant of “Yes, we can! Yes, we can!”

Awed by the turnout and energy created by her event, Ms. Currie explained that as a volunteer for “New Jersey for Obama” in Bergen County, she had originally planned to have only 20 or so people at a local primary watch party near her home.

But then, she said, she hit a Manhattan nightclub on a recent weekday, started flashing around some of her Obama campaign stickers, and was immediately bombarded by clubbers begging for stickers of their own. “I said to myself, you know what, I can do something much bigger than 20 people in New Jersey,” she said.

Soon after, she said, she called Tonic East and set up the party. The only costs for the event, she said, was $30 for the balloons. And the event’s advertising was limited to a posting on the Obama campaign Web site, a posting on Facebook, and to her own personal e-mail addresses, which soon spread far and wide, she said.

“This is a new chapter in our history,” Ms. Currie said of the Obama campaign and her reasons for strongly supporting the Illinois senator. “He transcends racial, religious and socioeconomic boundaries that no one else has been able to do.”

Later, outside one of the bars overtaken by the overflow crowds — Artica Bar and Grill — an Obama for America volunteer, Dan Phillips, 24, stood in the early-morning cold in just his dark-blue “Obama ’08” T-shirt, as he tried to put into perspective the excitement he had experienced during his nonstop and emotional Tuesday.

“I feel thrilled, motivated, inspired,” he said, his eyes tired-looking, yet wide. “This is a testament of what American can be. It’s about ‘We’ — it’s about all Americans.”

Jason Grant contributed reporting. Read all Primary Journal blog entries from the New York region.

What's Next

Looking for New York Today?

New York Today is still going strong! Though no longer on City Room, New York Today continues to appear every weekday morning, offering a roundup of news and events for the city. You can find the latest New York Today at nytoday.com or in the morning, on The New York Times homepage or its New York section. You can also receive it via email.

Lookin for Metropolitan Diary?

Metropolitan Diary continues to publish! Since 1976, Metropolitan Diary has been a place for New Yorkers, past and present, to share odd fleeting moments in the city. We will continue to publish one item each weekday morning and a round-up in Monday's print edition. You can find the latest entries at nytimes.com/diary and on our New York section online.

About

City Room®, a news blog of live reporting, features and reader conversations about New York City, has been archived. Send questions or suggestions by e-mail.